


Valentinus Interruptus: seven ways to fail at phone sex

by Serenhawk



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Cockles, Cockles Cooperative, Comedy, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, Fluff, I was going for pure fluff and it came out french farce, M/M, Masturbation, Panty Kink, Phone Sex, Polyamory, Polyamory problems, Valentine's Day, and much longer, cockles valentine's day challenge, this also got dirtier than I intended, which I bet Misha says all the time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 10:05:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6001909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenhawk/pseuds/Serenhawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Misha is unconditionally grateful for his life: an amazing and talented wife, precious enlivening children, handsome and doting not-quite-husband, relative financial stability, and a wealth of joyful enrichment.</p><p>Some days still epically suck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valentinus Interruptus: seven ways to fail at phone sex

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction.*  
> No disrespect intended to those whose names are used.
> 
> All three children appear, but only incidentally and in the background.  
> Vicki and Danneel make only brief appearances.
> 
>  
> 
> *Some parts may be based on true events

 

 

 

 

 

**14th February.**

**A Saturday.**

 

**_7.36 am_ **

 

 

Misha hovers in the bathroom doorway as his phone chirrups the familiar tone from its place on the dresser, but his internal debate on whether to answer or ignore is nanosecond long. 

Resistance is futile.

Backtracking across the room he collects the device and slides his thumb. “Morning,” he says amicably.

“Hey,” the voice at the other end rasps over the single syllable.

“You’re awake early,” he prompts into the following pause, inhabited only by rustling, uneven breaths and various noises indicating some half-assed form of limbering was taking place, concluded with the gasp and slow deflation of a yawn. “Clearly I was being presumptuous,” Misha amends, a long distance spectator to his other significant-other's rousing.

“Mmmph,” is the inscrutable reply, followed by some sandpaper-like scratching, then a click of a jaw realigning chased by a dry sniff. Misha waits, vacillating between bemusement and being entertained.

After ten seconds or so he gives up, deciding if he is going to get in the shower before the sweat in his shirt cools he will have to facilitate actual conversation.

“Ackles, without wanting to appear ungrateful, was there a reason you called other than to breathe at me?”

“Um, yeah,” his friend replies, voice still slack with the receding tide of sleep.

“Mmm—?”

“I, ahh— I wanted to wake up with you,” Jensen says sheepishly, “‘cause, ya know—” he trails off.

“Not reee-ally,” Misha answers slowly, his brows performing a quadrille. 

There's another sustained breathy sound before the other man continues. “ _Valentine’s_ day,” he says, as if it explains everything left unexplained in the universe.

Misha grunts, distracted by attempting to balance on one foot while trying to peel the damp sock from his other heel. It's unseasonably warm for February in L.A. and he’d perspired more on his run than he'd prepared for.

Removing the other sock he screws up his nose and tries to decide if he should be lobbing them at the laundry hamper or the bin. He takes a deciding sniff and recoils. _T_ _rash, definitely._

“Dude, are you even listening?”

“For the last five minutes, yes,” he answers, sighing unkindly.

“Mish,” Jensen began, like _he_ was suddenly the patient one in the conversation - and relationship, for that matter. “We’ve been together the last three valentine’s. This one I’m not gonna see you at all.”

Misha grins, a shy sideways thing contorting one cheek, and sits on the edge of the bed. “Aw, you—”

“Yeah-yeah,” Jensen interrupts tersely. “I’m a sap. Sue me.”

“Actually, I was going to say ‘you are one of the most delightful things to happen to me and I don’t deserve you’.”

There’s five seconds of dead air before Jensen resumes. “You were not,” he eventually grumbles.

“Doesn’t make it any less true,” Misha replies softly, the warmth from his own words seeping round his chest and banishing the chill from his clothing. Quite suddenly he resents sitting in his sweat-tainted running attire in his bedroom in southern California when he could be stretched out along Jensen’s lean back, grazing his lips over the knobs of his lover’s spine to wake him up so they could lazily jerk each other off before a quiet morning coffee. It had been, two? _three_ weeks since they’d seen each other, and longer since they’d slept over and enjoyed any mutually procured orgasms or lengthy burrowing under covers. Their last night together had been a convention weekend, and by the time Jensen stumbled into his hotel room drunk and/or high as a fucking kite (when Misha was, unfortunately, very much _not_ ) after performing, Misha had already been asleep and was less than thrilled to be woken up, and Jensen took all of ninety seconds to lapse into unconsciousness. So no, they were _overdue_ . In any case, he realized, it didn’t matter he was _here_ because it was a weekend which meant Jensen was in Austin with Dani and not alone in their (well, his, but it was as good as _their)_ apartment in Vancouver where they would hopefully both be in two days time, together, but for the grace of their call sheets and _why was life so motherfucking complicated?_

Misha sullenly kicks his bare toes into the carpet and wishes for a day when they weren’t spread over the goddamn continent in some distorted California/Texas/PNW Bermuda cock-blocking triangle, and instead residing in an idyllic communal arrangement where canoodle opportunities and _time_ weren’t snatched from the rigors of responsibility, and he was free to laugh with their kids and grow beans and heirloom zucchini and rule the country from the peaceful retreat of his workshop where he could feel the soft crunch of timber shavings under his bare feet all day whilst he and the pet tortoise get high on danish oil.

It was never going to happen. Their lives would never align like that. But a man could use his vociferous imagination to dream.

“Sweet-talker,” Jensen says, reminding him he’s actually in a conversation with someone other than all the inadequacies in his head.

“I learned from you,” he teases.

Jensen puffs on the other end of the line. “Just like I learned to talk dirty from you,” he murmurs. There are more muffled sounds of rearranging movements from the other end.

“I’m not sure that’s a compliment or indictment, but you weren’t exactly—um—unaccomplished when we met,” he qualifies before settling horizontally on the bed. “Ah, shit!” he growls as a discarded musical toy obnoxiously leaps into song from under the rumpled quilt where his left shoulder lands. He fossicks awkwardly for it, then testily goes to toss it across the room before catching himself with a reminder to _be the grown up,_ and places it at the foot of the bed to be tripped over later.

His caller, thankfully, seems oblivious. “Not to your scholarly level”. Misha nods to himself, unable to disagree. “You know,” Jensen continues in a new self-satisfied tone, “you can always give me a lesson now…”

“Ahh, I see, there’s the rub,” he quips. “You’re alone and horny. And you think of me. I’m touched.”

“You know I wish I was touching you,” Jensen says, low and smooth, and unperturbed by Misha’s implied accusation of ulterior motives.

“Where?” Misha sighs and gives over to the impulse to sink into the mattress and indulge them both.

“Where would you want me to?”

“Nah-ah,” Misha cautions, “You’re not going to learn if I do it for you. Tell me where.”

 Jensen hums lowly. “I want to be running my tongue under your balls—”

“Jesus, no foreplay?”

“The foreplay happened before I called you.”

“I _knew_ it,” Misha says, before tuning his voice to a note of dominion. “Catch me up then.”

“Okay, uh...where are you, and what are you wearing?”

Misha looks down the line his body. _Damn,_ why hadn’t he at least taken off his clingy tee yet?

“In the bathroom,” he lies flatly, “wearing...panties.” He winces. It was as good an image as any, he supposed, and this was theater.

The wind of a sharp exhale blows down the line. “Fuck, Mi—sha,” Jensen whines, before he’s off like a racehorse out of the gate. “Are you looking in the mirror? You gettin' hard? ‘Cause, damn...I wanna see you...can you take a pic? Are you touching yourself? Mish, I need a visual.”

Misha began to wish he wasn’t lying, it would be a lot more fun. He bucks his hips, wriggles, then tugs himself free of his shorts at least. Then he slides his palm under the band of his underwear.

“Babe—” Jensen cues urgently.

“No pic. Use that dutiful-southern-boy imagination of yours,” Misha smirks. “I am touching, however,” he adds, giving his undecided cock a long draw. “Now talk to—”

He’s cut off by World War III erupting in the hallway; indignant howling of accusations interspersed with disproportionate violence. “Wait,” he whispers curtly. He hoists himself off the bed to surreptitiously push the door to in the hope his wife would deal with the fallout, _without_ it appearing like he was leaving her to deal with their progeny despite being in closer proximity. He half-sits on the bed again before a further rise in volume from his daughter has him changing his mind and further retreating guiltily to the seclusion of the en-suite.

Leaning back on the closed door he takes a centering breath and explains. “Sorry, had to lock myself in.”

“S’ok, I’ve been playing without you.”

“Good. Don't stop. Now describe what you want to be doing to me.”

Jensen issues a quiet but spirited groan. “I want to bite your hip, right by that freckle, hard enough to make you jump and grab my hair.

 _Damn_ Misha thinks. _He’s not going to fuck around._ “Mmm...and?”

“You push me nose first into your dick and tell me to lick. So -  _uhh_ \- I tongue along the side of your cock so that the lace tickles.”

"Keep going, by all means," he invites, palming himself with growing sincerity.

Jensen clears his throat, and complies. "Uh, you're leaking, I can taste you, and it makes me want to swallow you down. But I...I don't. I kiss down until I can suck one of your balls into my mouth, massage it with my tongue—"

"Fuck, Jen—please."

"—then I do the same to the other, sucking and rolling in my mouth—I hope you can feel that baby—then I yank those panties down and swallow you so damn fast, right to the back of my throat."

Misha hisses, arousal pulling him as memories of Jensen’s mouth twine around his cock. He decides to commit, and take the wheel. Jensen had successfully goaded him - not that it was difficult.

“Turn over,” he says emphatically.

“Turn over?”

“I want your ass in the air. So do it now.”

“Okay. Hold on—”

Misha thumbs over his glans until the stirring on the other end of the line abates. “Still have yourself in hand?” he asked.

“Uh...yeah.”

“Good. Now I’m going to work you open with my tongue.”

“Oh fuck. Yeah, yes—”

“Can you feel me, washing over you - I know you’re gonna open up for me.”

“Yeah, I...I do. Ahh. God Mi—” Suddenly everything becomes muffled, and Misha strains his ears to decipher the indistinct noises.

“Jen?” he inquires.

The microphone scrapes clear. “Yeah.” Another stifled noise. “Dude, this is not working. I can’t hold the phone and lie on my stomach _and_ jerk off.”

“So put me on speaker,” Misha suggests, a little flip.

“The door’s open and the girls are around. I can’t put you on speaker,” Jensen answers tersely.

“Well if they are theoretically at risk of hearing you moaning away, why is hearing me unacceptable?”

“It just _is_ okay” the other man barks in a strained whisper.

Misha sighs. This usually runs much more smoothly. “Okay. I suppose you better roll back then.”

“Yeah, okay—” More rustling sounds take over. “Okay, I’m good. Continue.”

“Okay.” Misha rolls his eyes. “Where were we?”

“Your tongue Mish, your tongue! Focus!”

He shakes his head. “So we’re still pretending you’re face down, ass in the air, or…?

“Mmm...yeah, fine. Just...keep going. I need to come, babe.”

Misha takes a moment to listen to Jensen’s strained breaths. He massages under his balls and rolls them gently, thinking of his lover’s plush mouth and cheek pushed into the sheets while moaning his name.

“So I’m going to keep working you, teasing you to pry you open. You’re getting so loose for me, begging me to taste you. Can you feel me?”

“Uhhh. Yeah...I need...please—”

“I want your wrists crossed behind your back for me to hold you. I don’t want you to squirm as I finger you.” He’s rewarded with a guttural noise of pleasure, and frustration. “It slides right in, so deep.”

There’s another groan, and he catches himself before one of his own mimics it. “How does it feel, Jen?”

“Mmm—please, harder. I need more.”

“How much more?” he demands, pinching the head of his cock. “Tell me what you need.”

“I...baby—” The line becomes muffled again, before a breathy “uh, Cupcake, what you got for me?”

 _Cupcake?_ "I'm—"

“Oh wow, Button, that’s so good!”

_Button?!?_

“Jen—?” Misha starts before he clicks to the change of tone.

“Hold on!” Jensen returns in a desperate whisper, then more evenly “So you’ve painted me, and Mommy, and...that you?” Misha bites his lip to stifle a simmering giggle.

“Yes,” says the toddler in the background.”And Maison.”

“And Maisie,” he father repeats. “And that’s—?”

“Mee-sha, and Aunty Vee!” she finishes triumphantly.

“They’re great, wow look at Misha’s hair! But hey, aren’t you missin' someone? Who’ve you missed, sweetpea?”

“Umm. Wes'”

“Uh-huh, West. Did you forget him? You better go paint him too, dontchya think?” Jensen prompts, plaintively hopeful.

“Wes’ is a bum-face.”

“Oh!” Jensen exclaims in mock horror. Misha swallows another chuckle at inter-family relations, then catches himself in the mirror looking inappropriately debauched and proceeds to suffer a sharp dose of cognitive dissonance. “Well, you better go paint him a bum face then,” Jensen adds.

“O-kay,” the pint-sized interruption says uncertainly.

“Okay, good girl, off you go…bye!" he enthuses, before groaning " _fuuuck!”_

“Did you just tell JJ to depict my child with a _bumface_?” Misha asks, assuming they were alone again.

Jensen huffs. “Sorry man. I was...uh, so damn close.”

“Mmm. I too was finding that enjoyable.”

“You wanna keep going? Reckon I can still get there. Fuck I’m still...come on Mish.”

“Umm—”

“‘m still rock hard. And…uhh—” he trails off into a coarse sigh. It sounded like he was having no trouble attending to himself, so Misha regroups to try again.

“Okay,” He’s barely started his sentence before there’s a sharp rap on the door he still leans against. “Yes?” he answers cautiously, planting the phone against his chest.

“You nearly ready?” his wife asks from the other side.

“Ready?” He does some quick calculations and darts a quick look at the clock on his screen, his eyebrows pinching together. "We’re not due at the museum til ten, right?”

“Yes,” comes the overly patient voice. “But before that, we have to go to the store, and drop off the library books, and get the baby gift...so we need to go in...ten—fifteen tops.”

Misha sighs in defeat. “Okay.”

“I’m serious, Hon. Finish up.” Vicki adds in such a way that he feels utterly found out.

“‘Kay!” he says with feigned innocence, assembling a string of curses and apologies in his head. He waits a few seconds until he’s sure she’s moved away. “Jen I...sorry, I have to go.”

“Yeah, I figured,” resumed the southern drawl. “Maybe—?”

“Later?” he cuts in. “After lunch, we can try to finish this? I’ll call you?”

“I can finish myself...”

“Yeah, but—”

“Okay,” Jensen amends. “I still— _mmm—_ I'd still rather come with you.”

Misha peevishly bangs his head against the door at a rogue spike of desire. “Me too. Later, yeah?”

“Later, Mish.”

“Sorry,” he repeats, but the call gets disconnected before he rambles through a protracted apology. _Fuck!_ he vehemently adds to himself before stepping to turn the faucet and have the shortest shower he can get away with when he smells like eau de gym-bag.

 

 

 

_**1.44 pm** _

 

Misha finds himself once again hiding in the bathroom, although this time it belongs to someone else, and it’s him making the call to Texas.

“Hey, ‘bout time,” Jensen purrs.

“Yeah...that’s why I’m calling,” Misha says, “I’m stuck at this new-baby thing and it’s taking fucking forever because apparently, my normally articulate wife has a predisposition to fall into some trance state getting high off newborn baby voodoo! The only coherent thing she's said in the last hour is how they should bottle neonatal odor and sell it like crack."

“She's not wrong," Jensen admits. "Ah, where are you now?”

“Hiding in the bathroom.”

“So...let’s keep going.”

“I’m _not_ going to jerk off in a friend’s bathroom!” he whispers abruptly.

“Wouldn’t be the first time. Why not now?”

“Because there’s a room full of people fifteen feet away, and...and…these are not friends who know about our... _situation.”_

“Me?”

“No...not specifically, just our whole—” he waves his arm in frantic circles in lieu of finding an appropriate noun. “Never mind.”

“Hmm,” Jensen hums noncommittally, then changes tack. “Still wearing those panties?”

Misha debates. “Ah, yes?”

There’s an airless pause. “You never were, were you,” Jensen accuses mildly.

“No,” he admits, face scrunched as he waits for the fallout. 

“Aww, Mish,” is the somewhat incongruous reply, brimming with affection.

“Um...what?”

“I love you too.”

“Okay. Ah, thank you?”

“It’s the little things,” Jensen qualifies.

“Yes...I agree,” he confirms vaguely, thinking _that went well, considering_.

There’s a lag in the conversation. He relieves it with an audible sigh and looks at the ceiling, which is beginning to peel. He’s only aware he's been distracted by thoughts of adequate steam extraction when Jensen murmurs in his ear. “You sure you don’t wanna—?”

“Yeah,” he sighs once more: for luck, or pity, or just for drama. “I’ll call when we get home. You going to be around?”

“I have no freaking idea,” the other man says wryly. “Today is one of the days of the year I just do what I’m told.”

Misha scoffs in amusement. “It’s the little things,” he echoes. “Bye Jensen,” he adds fondly before hanging up and exiting the room, barely pausing to offer a meek effacing smile as he shuffles past the three people queued outside.

 

 

 

_**3.18 pm** _

 

Misha has tried to put as many safeguards in place as he can before calling Jensen back: the rest of his family have been dispatched to the park, he’s settled himself in the spare room with the door and blinds shut, and he’s even spent a few minutes on the bed priming himself thinking of Jensen spread out waiting for him before he makes the call so he’s good to go and they don’t waste any time. He’s sent Jensen a few texts over the course of the afternoon which, he perhaps unreasonably trusts, have had a similar effect on him.

So when the call is picked up and Misha, without waiting for a greeting, says “I hope you’re as ready as I am” without preamble in an unrestrained tone whilst having one hand wrapped around his pert cock, one risk he _hadn’t_ considered was that it wouldn’t be Jensen who answers the phone.

“I’m always ready for you, babe.” The oily reply doesn’t miss a beat.

Misha freezes with a thousand instant mortifications. “Uh—”

“Ooohh Mishy, I can’t wait, give it me big boy!”

Misha closes his eyes and rides out the compulsion to mentally begin preparations for that move to outer Mongolia.

“Jared,” he manages eventually, swallowing painfully around the name. “Why do you have his phone?”

There's a bellowing laugh. “He’s just in the bathroom, so I was just gonna tweet somethin’” his colleague—and nemesis—deadpans.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Misha accuses, thinking that _Yes, actually,_  he probably would at this point.

“Nah, you’re right,” he agrees. “I wouldn’t have answered either, but when I saw it was you I figured you’d be calling with something sappy, being Valentine’s day ‘n all. I’m not gonna to look a gift horse in the mouth.” Misha makes a strangled noise as Jared adds “You didn’t disappoint me, baby.”

“Fuck off,” he grumbles. A hearty laugh tumbles back at him before there is a gruff “Hey!” in the background, followed by noises of a tussle. “I love you too Mishaaaa!” echoes faintly and then drains into fading giggles.

Finally, the phone’s worried owner speaks. “Mish?”

“You should know better than to leave a room that contains both him and your phone,” Misha says petulantly.

“Eh, he knows better than to fuck with it. It’s only you that has to watch out." 

“Yeah, for _both_ you shitheads,” he gripes, before whining “I had my hand round my dick, Jensen. I called him ‘baby’.”

"It's not like he hasn't fondled you a shit-ton.”

"Yeah but I'm not usually masturbating when he harasses me!"

"Uh—oh, okay."

“I might never recover from this,” Misha adds theatrically. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to phonicate again.”

“I’m sure he’ll be as traumatized as you when he finds out,” Jensen lies unconvincingly.

“I doubt that. And he better not fucking find out!”

“No,” Jensen agrees, before adding, with complete disregard for stating the obvious, “So, now’s not a good time...”

“There may never be another good time,” Misha says, caught in a loop of regret.

“Babe, harden up,” Jensen orders, before revising with a deep chuckle, “Or...not, sorry. Shit, are you?”

“YES,” Misha spits out. “Past tense.”

“ _Damn._ Well we’re almost done. It was just a beer and some pool. How about...half hour? Say, four-ish?”

Misha glances at his screen to check the time. “Okay. I have may an hour before the kids are home again, so—” he trails off, hoping his urging for timeliness transmits through his dejection.

“‘kay. I got you. Just...hang tight,” Jensen encourages before disconnecting.

 _Tight?_ Misha thinks. _Unclenching is going to be the problem._

 

 

 

_**4.28 pm** _

 

Misha has given up. He doesn’t consider himself a quitter but, he thinks, three times and they should just accept that they’ve struck out. He comes to this conclusion when Vicki and the kids arrive home right when Jensen is due to call, and is further confirmed when Jensen fails to keep their tentative appointment anyway, adhering to their traditional inability to ever being anywhere together on time.

When Jensen does eventually phone, a mere half-hour late, Misha violently resents his boyfriend is channeling some Casanova-cross-porn star persona while _he_ wallows in a funk.

“Have you recovered?” Jensen asks once they’ve exchanged cursory greetings.

“That may require therapy.”

“Oh c’mon. He’s done far worse and you’re still...here.”

“True. But what were you going to say instead of ‘here’,” he probes.

“ _Sane_. Obviously.”

Misha can tell Jensen is smiling. Nonetheless, he feels some castigation is in order. “I don’t appreciate your inference, Ackles.”

“Well I don’t appreciate you’re not naked bending me over the pool table, but we can’t all get what we want.”

 _That was not fair_ his internal narrator whines.

“That’s not fair,” he echoes weakly, his libido raising a tentative hand again. “Is that what you wish we were doing?”

“Actually, I wish— where are you, we good?

“Bedroom, and yes, for the time being,” Misha assures, faking optimism like a pro. 

“Good. I wish—we’re starting over by the way—we were in Italy, and we’ve just been to dinner and we walk home, and I get to kiss you out in the open with the tourists and the stars watching, long and sweet and hard until you don’t wanna stand up anymore...and then back in our suite I sit you down in a chair and tell you not to move or touch me, and I stand over your knees and strip for you; first my shirt, then my belt— you still with me Mish?”

“Um, yeah,” he croaks, aggrieved at the languid whiskey ‘n cigar voice sending tendrils of arousal and adoration snaking around him. He fears that if he lets himself wade into the pool of want again they’ll either be cut short and he _will_ go insane (Einstein was on to something with his definition after all) or they will see this through but it will be wholly unsatisfying because the day had been some ill-conceived orgasm-denial training exercise spiked with emotional cruelty.

Jensen continues, oblivious to his inner debate or reservations. Verbalized caresses in his ear begin to describe in eloquent technicolor and surround sound how his lover would reveal himself, touch himself, tease him; provoke all the responses he wanted and weave them into a dance of need. It wasn't long before Misha gave over, the pull of lust like a riptide that only turned benevolent once he’d surrendered and let Jensen orchestrate his hunger.

“—gonna plunder your mouth, kiss you so hard we’re going to have beard-burn the next day so bad everyone will figure it out, and I won’t give a fuck—”

 _Shit_ he mouths. Jensen knows all the right strings.

“—but you’re still not going to touch me. I know how much you like touching me, don’t you babe?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“That’s because there’s a part of you that likes owning me, isn’t there Mish—?”

A whine huddles in the back of this throat. It’s a small familiar truth, but a reliable one.

“—and I know it drives you crazy not to press your fingertips into my skin, but I want crazy, just like you drive me fucking nuts when you _won’t_ touch me.”

Misha swallows hard, his fingers curling almost cruelly around his penis in an attempt to both focus and curb his desire.

“Are you touching yourself?” Jensen asks. “I want to know you how much you need me right now.”

“Jen you’re killing me softly. I’m hating being here. And of course I’m fucking hard.” The words stumble, breathy and bitter from his mouth.

“Good. Now you’re going to spread your legs for me so I can kneel down and find how hard you are, how much your cock needs my mouth around it. Does it, Mish?”

Misha acknowledges the question with a faint moan, but his visceral needs are quickly being tuned to an uncomfortable pitch by sentiment, needing so very badly the immediacy he can’t have: to be close, engulfed and absorbed, lost to texture and sweat and fluid, the slide and slap of skin—acres of skin to taste, to venerate, to write a hundred ink-less words upon or empty prayers commemorating falling, the long sweet fall where you’re never in danger.

He doesn’t even want to come, he realizes. His needs are suddenly much more transcendental. He wants to burn so bright in Jensen that he burns out.

“—drag my teeth, slow, down your cock and pinch your foreskin, almost enough to hurt, before swirling my tongue—”

 _Or maybe I could still come,_ he revises, aware of how steadily he’s now stripping himself. “Fuck,” he grinds out. “Jen, you have no idea…” he pleads lamely.

“Tell me, baby,” Jensen hoarsely commands.

“I...I need—”

As if following some iniquitous script, his daughter calls out from the nearby bathroom. She’s calling for her mother, but when she receives no reply she’s joined in harmony by her brother, who yells heroically for him.

“Mish?” Jensen prompts him.

“Just a sec,” he says absently, listening for a resolution. It arrives, unfortunately, in the form of Vicki a few moments later, likewise with a phone to her ear, and who gestures rapidly first down the hall then to her mouth. Misha widens his eyes and likewise impatiently points at his device, but his wife whisks the phone to her chest and whispers “My editor, you go!” before turning and walking back down the passage.

Misha closes his eyes in defeat again. “Jen, sorry, I have to go. Something’s up with the kids. I’ll call straight back, okay?” he assures, his voice dull with sudden comedown.

Jensen sighs at the other end. “Do what you gotta do," he says kindly. "I’ll be here— no hurry. I’m always going to be here.”

Misha’s heart breaks a little. “‘Kay, I’ll be back soon,” he assures, hollow, and cuts the call.

The yelling, it turns out, is because while he and his wife were conducting important ‘business’ on their phones, their daughter had come down with a stomach ailment, and while she had valiantly made it to the bathroom, both she and the general vicinity of the toilet were only approachable in a hazmat suit.

Misha, on standing in the doorway, decided to take up religion long enough to tell the gods that _Yes, thanks, he’d got the fucking message._

 

 

 

_**6.31 pm** _

 

Misha finally picks up his phone to find three messages waiting from Jensen: the first two fairly lewd (one containing an artfully filtered pornographic image charitably captioned “what you’re missing”), which did _not_ make him feel any better, and the last a “everything OK?” text that made him feel even worse for not replying until now.

He taps to connect the call and waits, beginning to mentally compose an apologetic voicemail befitting their indefatigable bad luck for the day as it goes unanswered.

 _“Shit,_ sorry,” is the unorthodox greeting when it suddenly clicks through.

“That was my line,” Misha replies dryly.

“I nearly—” Jensen begins, before tersely whispering “ _hold on!_ ”

 There are a few seconds of silence before continuing with clearing his throat. “Uh, sorry. Hey Mish!” His hushed tone was suspiciously cheerful.

“What are you doing?” Misha inquires. “This a bad time?”

“I’m hiding. We’re due at a reservation in thirty, and Dani is on her fourth change.” Misha huffs in commiseration. “No woman is immune to a goddam wardrobe crisis,” Jensen adds with feeling.

“Hey now, pots and kettles,” Misha reprimands gently. “I’ve negotiated you off a clothing-crisis ledge on more than one occasion.”

“I’ve _asked_ your opinion, _on occasion_ ,” Jensen says, playing the offended card, before volleying back “but you never ask _mine.”_

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, maybe you _should_ ask me more often!”

“I don’t need to, ‘cause I know you’re going to give it to me anyway,” Misha counters blithely.

There are several seconds of obstinacy-laden silence, and Misha imagines Jensen weighing up whether to continue their perpetually half-serious argument over whom has the better taste and inclination for fashion including whether or not Misha should even care (yes sometimes Misha purposefully makes questionable choices just to wind him up) or, conserve control of his blood pressure.

Whatever he decides it’s subverted by one petite Mrs. Ackles not sounding the least peevish or stressed over what her husband obviously saw as their current predicament.

“Jay..?” Misha heard her dainty voice coming into focus. “Jay, where are y—  _What_ are you doing in here?”

“Ahh...Misha,” Jensen states sheepishly.

“Oh. Hi Misha!”

Misha, even despondent, opportunistically interferes with Jensen’s neatly organized compartments. “I can’t wait to lick your ass this week,” he husks close to the microphone.

“Uh,”

“I wonder if I can make you come just with that new dildo whilst sucking on your balls.”

“Mi— 

“Maybe if I tie your wrists to your knees first...”

“Uh, he, ah— says ‘Hi’ back,” Jensen says to his wife, foundering with the words enough to bring a satisfied smirk to Misha’s lips.

“So, the gold, or this one?” Danneel chimes in.

“You know, I love that green on you babe. Go with that.”

“The teal?”

“Yeah, that. Teal. It’s perfect.”

“Sure?”

“Damn sure.”

“Okay then. Gimme five.”

There was a brief silence, ending with Jensen hissing lowly “I think she heard you, man!”

“Good. I’m sure she’ll get her own back later.”

“Yeah,” Jensen complains, “and I’m stuck in the middle of your...your games.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t love being in the middle. You’re the prize.”

“I’m not! I don’t!” Jensen takes a sweeping breath. “You’re the one who taught me it doesn’t work like that!” he gripes. “Now, can we go back to insulting each other over clothes?”

Misha scrunches his face, remorse warping his features as he searches for redemption from the onset of assholery. _Fuck today_.

They pause, hushed, and let the silence readjust their ballast.

“What are _you_  wearing?” Misha says, hedging his tone between offhand and affection. “I hope it complements the teal.”

“Clothes,” Jensen deadpans, “and who the fuck knows.”

“She will, no doubt.”  A thought occurs - one which buoys him a little. “Are you wearing a scarf?”

“Not yet. Want me to?”

“That’s your decision.”

“I think I want to,” Jensen says, low and coy.

“I’m pleased,” Misha returns, the next void in their conversation weighted with unspoken symbolism: declarations and memories, security and possession, and fate.

“What are you wearing?” Jensen impassively asks, breaking the spell.

Misha looks down and catches a whiff of his misfortune. “Projectile vomit, mostly,” he replies.

“What?”

“Nevermind,” he diverts. “I’ll let you go. I wanted to say sorry, about earl—”

“Shush,” Jensen cuts him off. “What isn’t meant to be isn’t meant to be. Let’s stop jinxing it. Whatever happens, happens, alright?”

“That’s....meaninglessly philosophical and uncharacteristically fatalistic of you.”

“What?” Jensen replays.

“Um, so romantic dinner is it?” he asks, less than agilely sheering them in another direction with relief that he's absolved of having to explain the whole 'diarrhea and puke' situation he’s had to deal with for the last two hours. His feelings of concern for his afflicted three-year-old in danger of being eclipsed by pitying resignation to the less than glamorous aspects of parenthood.

“Yeah,” Jensen confirms. “If we ever get there. _Fuck,_  how hard can it be?”

“Don’t let her hear you say that, or the evening will not turn out very well—or hard—for you, my friend.”

“Dude I’m more than just a pretty face.”

Misha smiles, warm and wide. “I love how you’ve learned to say that without it being loaded with self-deprecating irony,” he says with fond sincerity.

“Ha!” Jensen scoffs, before pondering “Well that might be 'cause you— Crap, we are Go! Talk later, okay?”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it. Have a lovely night, treat her as she deserves,” Misha says, magnanimous but disappointed at the aborted sentence.

“I’ll call.” his friend promises emphatically, then hangs up.

Misha tosses his phone beside him on the quilt and bows his chin to the V made by his palms, the silence of the room corpulent with the sudden absence of Jensen. He begins arguing with the acute emotional craving, reasoning he should be (and is) grateful he was at his home with the enduring love of his life, which abruptly leads to mourning that he and Vicki didn’t have more traditional plans for the day despite Valentine’s day never featuring in their observances before.

There was _something_ about Jensen though. Something that conjured impulses he generally thought he was above or found irritating in others: doting overblown gestures, jealousy, something akin to separation anxiety. They're usually short-lived itches on the topography of his self-perceptions, but they still catch him out when they bite.

His wife sweeps the door open and catches his eye. “Dinner,” she says concisely, before cocking her head. “Everything okay?”

“In the broad scheme of things yes,” he assures, unconvincingly.

Vicki steps towards him and leans, cupping him behind the ears. “Come, eat,” she commands softly. “Before we all end up catching this stomach flu.” She waits until he returns her a smile he hopes isn’t too anemic, then plants a kiss on his forehead.

She retreats but turns half way to the door, her nose crinkling. “For the love of all things, change your shirt first.”

Misha watches her departing figure down the hallway then takes a sniff of his tee he immediately regrets, his own stomach rolling in response. At least he hopes it’s only psychosomatic nausea. Surely that fuck-knuckle Murphy could not be _that_ cruel.

 

 

 

_**10.07 pm** _

 

Vicki is in the shower when Misha’s phone buzzes again. There had been no signs of rejected stomach contents (from Maison, nor thankfully anyone else) for a good hour, so he’s taking a few quiet minutes to scroll his various notifications when the screen is hijacked by an incoming FaceTime call.

“Hello,” he drawls once he accepts and Jensen flicks into view. “How was dinner? Oh, you alone?” he asks as his friends shifts and it’s clear he’s sitting in bed, shirtless.

“Just waitin' for Dee. She’s in the bathroom, changing. Apparently, she’s bought 'something special'  for me.”

Jensen’s expression, exacerbated by alcohol Misha suspects, has that endearing ‘kid at Christmas’ quality that juxtaposes so perfectly with his affected gruff exterior. “Lucky you!” he says generously.

Jensen clicks his tongue inside his cheek. “I’m a fortunate man,” he agrees solemnly before his warm eyes cast Misha shrewd if bleary look. “You—are you okay?”

Misha huffs a sigh. “Been a weird day. I need to turn in,” he admits, a yawn following as if cued.

“You should. You’ve looked better.”

Misha lifts his eyebrows. “So nice of you to call with this boost for my ego. While you wait to have scorching sexual relations with your wife. Thoughtful. You know I… I love you too,” he nods, mimicking humility.

Jensen rolls his eyes in full ‘why do I ever—?’ fashion, but then turns an abashed smile at the screen. “Mish, I—”

Misha watches as his friend’s attention is pulled across the room. He has an acute view of Jensen’s pupils dilating only to contract abruptly as his Adam’s apple bobs. If he didn’t know better it looks like fear, he thinks, puzzled, but then the camera zooms towards the other man’s torso and goes black, and he's left wondering if it’s appropriate he stay essentially nestled among Jensen’s sparse smattering of chest hairs for the foreseeable future, or whether he should disconnect right now.

The decision is taken out of his hands when he hears Danneel from nearby.

“Is that— are you on the phone?”

“It’s just Misha. He’s...he’s—” Jensen stammers.

“Here—” she demands.

The screen readjusts to being picked up and the lens blurs through the light changes to focus on it’s new operator, his friend and spouse-in-law fixing him with a feline smile.

"Hi Misha."

"Ah...hey Dan."

“Thanks for keeping him warm for me, but Wait. Your. Turn, Dmitri!”

Misha gapes in protest. “But he called—” he starts, indignant, only for the screen to freeze with a brief image of her poking out her tongue as the call disconnects, leaving him to say “—me,” to no one but himself and his empty living room.

He looks around blankly, and swears even the potted palm in the corner is drooping piteously in his honor.

 

 

 

_**11.39 pm** _

 

Misha dozes in that dream-state between being awake and unconscious when his phone vibrates on the bedside. He would normally turn it off completely but some impulse (concern? neediness? masochism?) led him to leave it within reach.

At first, he thinks he _is_ dreaming, anxiously attuned for the next arrested phone call like a Pavlovian dog. It isn’t til Vicki nudges him with an elbow he shakes himself awake. “Go. Talk to him,” she mumbles graciously as she pulls the covers tighter around her shoulders.

He rolls and fumbles for the device, and stands, answering with a scratchy “Hey. Just a minute” before pulling a throw from the foot of the bed and padding down the hall to the lounge. Sinking into the couch, he drapes the blanket carelessly over himself. “You know, this really isn't how edging works," he says as he folds his legs up on the seat.

"What?"

"Nevermind. So, what's up?"

"I just realized I didn't get you anything. For Valentine's day."

"Oh? Um, do we do gifts? I don't need one, but, if you—" He trails off, his drowsy brain flustered.

"Doesn't matter," Jensen yawns. “I just wanted to, you know, hear your voice. Before I go to sleep.”

Misha slumps, resting his head on a bundle of cushions as he stretches out. “So we’ve come full circle? Without coming,” he says wryly, before pleading “Uh, you’re not calling to try again, are you? My dick hates me.”

Jensen hums consolingly. “Today has fucked us over, huh?”

“Mmm,” Misha concurs, nodding to himself. “At least one of us had some fun. Or did you get into too much trouble earlier?” he asks, fishing.

“Not in the way you’re probably imagining,” Jensen dryly supplies. “Or even the second or third ways.”

“Well now you have me intrigued,” he says, still trawling, then amends with concern. “Is everythi— are you okay?

“Ah, I’m...great. Little sore, but, yeah. great.”

“Dare I ask?”

“Sure, but you don’t wanna know,” Jensen assures flippantly. “On second thought, you probably do. But I ain’t gonna be the one to tell you - not unless you buy me a drink first.”

Misha chuckles. “You are the farthest thing from a cheap date. I’ll wrestle it from you another way.”

“Promise?”

“My word is my bond. 

Jensen’s voice drops to a wisp of smoke. “I thought you didn’t want me turned on.”

“I always want you turned on. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“What would you prefer in your mouth, Mish?”

Misha stands in a highwire. He could fall; chase the beckoning rush and risk a hard landing. Or, he could walk safely to the other side and luxuriate in the view when next the sun shone.

“I know what you’re doing and you can stand down your siren song,” he says, deciding discretion is the better part of valor.

There’s a long silence, peppered with the faint wet sounds of Jensen sucking a lip between his teeth. “You’re right. I’m beat,” the other man admits. “Dad.”

“Fuck you, and it doesn't mean—never mind,” Misha whispers, and it’s Jensen’s turn to puff amusement.

“I have missed you though,” the other man says earnestly.

“Likewise,” Misha admits, closing his eyes. “At a weirdly intense level.”

“Mmm.”  There’s another pause, long enough for Misha to feel the lull of sleep push at him again. “Where are y—?” Jensen eventually asked, another yawn swallowing the end of his question.

“Couch, blanket,” Misha supplies economically. “You?”

“Same. Wearing?”

“Blanket.”

Jensen issues an approving noise, then makes a suggestion. “Curl up with me?”

“Hmm?”

“If we can phone sex, we can phone snuggle,” his friend says, latching onto his own idea with conviction. “Big spoon or little?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“Too bad, you’re little.”

“Oh, like that is it?”

“Yup. Now I’m going to tuck my ankle over yours and put my arm over you, so you can’t go anywhere.

“Uh-huh,” Misha murmurs, trying to suppress the mirth threatening Jensen’s really quite adorable attempt to rescue their day of adventures in failed long-distance intimacy.

He worms down into the deep couch a little more, folds his arm tightly over his front and imagines being cocooned in Jensen’s resolute embrace; feet interlocking and hips bones pressing against his rear with warm breaths skimming over his skin.

“I’m gonna bury my nose in your hair, maybe tickle your neck a little before I nip teeth marks along your shoulder...can you feel that Mish?” Misha makes a rumbling echo in the back of his throat and shifts against the cushions. _Dammit_ he just about can, and wants it like everything else he's wanted but can't have today.

He is also in imminent danger of falling asleep. “You, umm….couldn’t give me a massage while you’re back there could you?” he slurs. “I’m kinda tense.”

“I would if I could,” Jensen replies. “Right now I wanna be brushing my hand along your side and whispering what I didn’t get to finish saying earlier in your ear, before I suck on it,” he adds, undeterred.

“Oh, what’s that? Misha lazily asks.

“Mmm ya know...just that I love you.”

“Oh,” Misha sighs, warmly swaddled in multiple abstract layers. “Just that.”

It was one of those curious little ironies, that Jensen had never had any difficulty with simple words;  _I love you,_ or variations like _I need you,_   _I wish you could share this with you,_  or  _we need to fuck_.For all Misha’s exuberant relationship with words, sometimes the simple ones, the honest and unambiguous ones, were the most difficult for him to find.

“Ah-huh,” Jensen confirms, sounding increasingly sleepy as well.

They lapse into another lull, characteristic of the calls throughout the day, or indeed on any given day when they are not in the same city or state or even country but yearn to carve out a small space for themselves in any way they can. Jensen’s rhythmic breathing close to his ear via speaker was not entirely disparate to if he was indeed molded to Misha’s back, chin hooked over his shoulder.

“Gonna give you one of those hand massages this week,” Jensen suddenly says, startling Misha from his drifting doze. It was so out of the blue he wasn’t sure his friend was entirely awake either, or maybe still a little drunk. “Those ones you love so much,” he qualifies.

“I do, and I’d like that. Though I know you like giving as much I like receiving.”

Jensen scoffs in his ear. “Gives me a chance to make love to your hands," he admits candidly.

“Make love?” Misha snorts. “You do know no one has used that phrase since circa 1997, don’t you?”

“You sayin’ you don’t want me to?” Jensen teases.

“Oh no, I want you to. You’re just a dork.”

“Yeah well, I must have missed my shots and got infected by your dork. I blame you.”

Misha makes a protesting 'humph' noise but otherwise lets himself linger in their cozy mirage.

"Do you really? Blame me?" he eventually inquires, curious.

"Yep. For most everything." Jensen says with a held breath that sounds like he's re-positioning himself, then adds "I find it's easier that way," 

Misha screws up his face but forgoes a cranky response. "Did you just roll over? Now I'm the big spoon."

"'kay boss." Jensen's answer wafts indistinctly.

"Jensen, If you fall asleep on the couch is Danneel going to be more pissed at you, or me?"

"Me, initially. But I'll blame—"

"—me, yeah-yeah." Misha ponders how much more time they can risk before one or both of them does fall asleep and probably commit a massive spousal Valentine's faux-pas.

"You know, I take exception," he says, rallying with residual indignation. "Everyone assumes I'm the corrupting influence, but you were the one who seduced me, who snared me with your charm and your light and your...your multiplicity and your fucking...pixie dust!" His words were failing him.

"Pixie dust?" 

"Whatever. Essentially, _I_ blame _you!_ "

"Pfffff!"

Misha sighs.  _That's not a valid response,_ he complains inside his head.

 

Jensen does reply, and his words carry Misha to sleep a few minutes later with his heart dangerously compressed in his chest. Simple, devastating words he's not sure how to accommodate. 

"So do I, Mish."

"Sorry?"

"My soul didn't quite fit until I met you," Jensen says, sleepy, but low and clear. "I needed you, Misha. You are my gift."

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you have heard my Jensen/Cockles op anecdote, aka "the day Jensen wrecked my life". The convo at the end of this story was both inspired by that, and meant to get my own back in some small private way. I wrote it the night before Jensen's "I blame you" tweet to Misha, which some of you also know caused me a brief and catastrophic loss of chill.
> 
> I guess the joke is still on me. Fuck you, Ackles.


End file.
